Dementia sufferers potential targets of ballot box abuse

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Florida neurologist Marc Swerdloff was taken aback when
a patient with advanced dementia voted in the 2000 US presidential
election. The man thought it was 1942 and Franklin D. Roosevelt was
president. The man's wife revealed that she had escorted her husband into
the booth.

"I said 'Did he pick?' and she said 'No, I picked for him',"
Dr Swerdloff said. "I felt bad. She essentially voted twice" in the
Florida election, which gave George Bush a 537-vote victory and the White
House.

As swing states with large elderly populations such as Florida
gear up for another presidential election, one issue is gaining attention
on medical, legal and political radar screens: many people with advanced
dementia appear to be voting in elections, including through absentee
ballot.

Although there are no national statistics, studies in
Pennsylvania and Rhode Island found that patients at dementia clinics
turned out in higher numbers than the general population.

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About 4.5
million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, the most common cause of
dementia. Florida alone has 455,000 patients.

Concern is growing that
people with dementia may be targets for partisan exploitation in nursing
homes and elsewhere. Even without abuse, family members and care-givers
may unduly influence close elections.

"Precisely because Alzheimer's
disease insidiously erodes the ability to make reasoned judgements . . .
it is somewhat unnerving to consider that patients with dementia may
routinely contribute to selecting the leader of the free world," Victor
Henderson and David Drachman wrote after the 2000 election in the journal
Neurology.

Many people with mild dementia can understand the issues in
an election, but experts say there is no way to test voter competence.